About the role
About Us
Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.
Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.
About the Role
As Validation Laboratory Module Lead, you build Harmattan's environmental test laboratory from a blank page and then run it. Today too much of our environmental testing depends on external labs and their scheduling, which slows our development down as much as it costs us. Your mission is to change that, and you own it end to end: defining the capabilities we need, specifying and buying the machines, contributing to the choice of premises, recruiting and leading the technicians, and drawing the line between what we bring in-house and what stays external.
This is a senior, hands-on leadership role, and the lab does not exist yet. Beyond building it, you become the Group's reference on environmental testing: supporting the validation teams on the lab validation of their projects, reviewing the environmental parts of their test plans, and handing our test procedures over to the quality team as products move into production.
What you'll do
- Define the lab and select the equipment: Establish the capabilities we need, then specify, evaluate and procure the machines, covering climatic and thermal cycling, water and dust ingress, vibration and UV ageing, including a large climate room in which we can fly a drone under controlled wind and temperature.
- Decide what we internalise and what stays external: Draw the line between the tests worth owning and those better bought from external labs, such as accredited qualification or rare capital-heavy tests, and revisit that line as our product range grows.
- Set up the facility: Contribute to the choice of premises, then take the site from layout and utilities through to installation, safety and commissioning.
- Build and lead the team: Recruit and lead a team of two to three lab technicians, set the working standards, and grow the team's capability as the lab ramps up.
- Support the validation teams: Assist the validation modules on the lab validation of their projects, and peer-review the environmental sections of their test plans, making sure the right tests, conditions and acceptance criteria are defined.
- Hand over to production: Work with the quality team to transfer our test procedures as products reach PVT and mass production, so that production-line testing stays consistent with what validation defined.
What we're looking for
- At least 10 years in environmental testing, including setting up or substantially developing a test lab. This is a senior role and we are looking for depth, not a first lab job.
- Strong command of environmental test methods and the equipment behind them: climatic and thermal cycling, vibration, water and dust ingress, UV, and the standards that frame them.
- Proven equipment judgement: able to specify, evaluate and procure test machines, and to argue build-versus-buy and in-house-versus-external on both cost and technical merit.
- Experience leading a small technical team, or clear readiness to step into that responsibility.
- A rigorous, methodical approach to test planning, acceptance criteria and documentation.
- Comfortable working across functions with engineering, validation and quality, and translating between them.
- Engineering degree in a relevant field (mechanical, materials, electronics, physics or similar), or equivalent experience.
- Bonus: experience with defence or aerospace test standards (MIL-STD-810, RTCA DO-160 or similar); familiarity with lab accreditation and metrological traceability such as ISO/IEC 17025; a background in drones or robotics.
- Working-level English; French is a plus.
- Based at our Paris-area site, with occasional travel to our Swiss site.
We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.